


Fleas

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Multi, Resolved!, Threesomes, UST, keep walking folks, minor spoilers for 6:01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 05:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4991221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon





	Fleas

“How often have they spoken?” Daryl asks, bewildered.

“Dunno.  Three – maybe four times?” Michonne hedges.  

From the other side of the street, Rick makes moon-eyes at Jesse - creepy, stalker-ish moon-eyes – and Daryl averts his gaze quick. Tribbles, the golden retriever, barks joyfully, running between the people milled on the sidewalk and those spilling onto the summer green lawns of Alexandria; there hadn’t been a speck of water on the road for days, _weeks_ before they met Aaron, the fields and creeks gone dry with the lack of it, a silver sky overhead that rumbled in discontent but never delivered. In contrast, the lawns at Alexandria are watered once every three days – emerald green - an oasis of opulence that makes her stomach churn.  Michonne winkles her nose.  “I haven’t had enough alcohol for this.”

“The hell?  He’s in love after _three_ conversations?” Startled, Daryl squints from one body to another.  “Seize the day, Rick.”

“Oh, you did _not_ say that.”

“So what?” Daryl challenges.  “You missed your chance…  Waited too long is all.”

“Says Mr. ‘You-want-blood----you-can-take-it-from-me?’” Her teeth flash, predator white, she looks him over once.  “Your interest is not fooling anyone. I’ve seen the way you watch him.”

Daryl corrects.  “No, we’re _brothers_ , see. _”_

Michonne laughs, musical and affectionate. She’s missed this: fleas and snide remarks, the way they spoke to each other when hunting the Governor, those long days spent alone.  “So many incestuous jokes I could add to that.”

“Fuck you.”

“Gladly,” she deadpans, and takes another swallow of beer, her voice sotto voce.   “Truth is, I have the wriggles something fierce.”  She feels like she was bitten by a whole colony of fleas; crawling over her skin.

An eyebrow flickers.  “Wriggles?” He echoes silently.

“The drive to move, fuck, kill,” Michonne elaborates. She examines him from head to foot then decides magnanimously.  “You’ll do.”

Daryl drops with a snort, sitting side-by-side with her, bum on the curb and his feet stretched out across the road, both heels knocking together in the morning heat.  Michonne peels the label from her beer bottle, tearing if off in ragged strips, condensation wet on her fingertips, and watches him out of the periphery of her vision.  “You think Morgan was wrong?  To fight their battle for them?”  She can hear Rick’s shout – _Morgan, **no** , let them do it_ – same as she can recall the terror in Carter’s eyes.

“Pfft.”  Daryl stirs.  Carter breaks away from the group and stalks toward a house, his shoulders riding high.  “Hardly a battle.  Seems that was Rick's point.”

Controlled environment, Michonne agrees, easing them into it, except nothing is controlled, a pipe-dream to hope otherwise.  “Yeah, but you were quick to back up Morgan when he stepped in.”

“So were you.  So was _Rick_. They had it…they could have had it.  They just need to get their thumbs out of their asses.  Next time, Carter might not have back up… next time, he can’t freeze.”

“Tough love,” she says, without inflection.

Across the street Mike sets up a barbeque, the community gathering to question Morgan and his deadly staff while Rick rides herd on the perimeter, stiff-legged and wary as a junkyard dog.  Deanna has long since disappeared.

“What’s her name, anyways?” Michonne affects a double-take. “What?”  He adds defensively.  “I’ve been scouting.  The moron fell for her thirty seconds after I left; not my fault it went down so fast I didn’t catch her digs.”

“It’s Jesse.  She’s bruised…sweet…recently widowed, thanks to our Mr. Grimes.” The uniform feels stifling, as if she’s laced herself too tightly at the back.

Daryl jiggles her knee.  “He ain’t going anywhere near her - ain’t some social obligation – I’m only helping you because I want to jump your bones or some other bullshit.  Rick would help anyone in her situation…  She’ll see.”

Michonne smiles, Mona Lisa sad, and doesn’t meet his gaze.

“I don’t think so.”  Or maybe Rick’s convinced himself that this is how it has to be. She looks over at Jesse, wan and beautiful - how Jesse’s shoulders curve inward – regrouping after Pete’s death, and murmurs.  “He hasn’t looked at anyone that way since Lori.” 

Secretly, Michonne thinks it can be a blessing to be unknown, to present yourself as someone new without history or prejudice, to sketch in the rough lines of who you want to be - a constable, a father - and let other deeds slough off like a dead skin.  Sometimes she thinks it’s easier to act – _to ask for help_ \- if you think you’re ‘special’, and be assured the ‘specialness’ will merit an instant reaction. She doesn’t have the heart to tell Jesse by that reckoning - Tara, Michonne, Noah - and anyone else who needed help along the way were special for Rick, too, or that he’s aided them all without asking for anything in return.   

She wants to reassure Jesse the other boot she’s now dreading _isn’t_ going to land in her ribs sometime soon.  She wants to say that’s not how Rick operates; but she thinks Jesse might have needed the nudge to her ego in the first place and in the end none of it is Michonne’s business.  Devil’s advocate has her shrugging:  “We’ve all lived in each other’s pockets for such a long time.  Maybe Rick _wants_ to hook up with someone he doesn’t know...someone who doesn’t know _him_.  Sometimes it’s simpler that way.”

“Yeah?” Daryl takes the bottle from Michonne’s hand. He puts his mouth over the lip and finishes it in three swallows.  Negligently, he waves the empty long-neck at the crowd.  “Cos I think the Alexandrian’s are sketching in a pretty drawing of their own…especially after this morning's show.”

They’re getting to know Rick, filling in their own blanks, making their own assumptions.  Whatever daydreams Rick might have entertained are blowing over fast. Covered in blood, a walker over his shoulder-blades, Peter dead, letting the walkers approach Carter's team – these aren’t images soon forgotten.  It isn’t all of who Rick is same as being a constable isn’t all of who he _is_ but there’s no denying the entire township is wary of him.

“Man’s a right ol’ talking point,” she concedes, wearily.

Jesse hedges away as Rick approaches the group, his gaze fixed on Carter’s retreating back.  She circles counter-clockwise, aiming for Ron, keeping the same space between her and the newly reinstated constable.  The shade of her hair reminds Michonne of Andrea - or the angle of Jesse’s jaw-line, but it seems everybody reminds Michonne of someone else these days, manifest ghosts cobbled by faulty memory.  There’s a fighter in her, Michonne reasons, Jesse’s eyes are wide open.

“Three conversations,” Daryl huffs. “Fast.  Maybe Rick’s got the wriggles too.”

Michonne laughs at the disdain.

Things were dangerously close for Aaron and Daryl before...she knows Rick wants to put a stop to it, pronto, this search for unknown people, and she knows Daryl’s miffed everything went to hell the moment he left Alexandria with Aaron.  Michonne’s a little bewildered herself, how quickly it all descended. Constable, Deanna insisted, not sheriff or cop, not Wyatt Earp and his posse of guns – but _constable_ , and like the British their police force wasn’t allowed weapons inside of Alexandria’s walls, a gentle rebuke, a reminder that this is how Deanna wanted civilisation to play out.  They were constables first.  

The katana is slanted across her spine; the gun heavy on her hip, and the uniform doesn’t seem so foreign under Rick's alteration.  She’s tired.  Michonne’s been up all night.  Rick is still splattered with dried walker gore and there’s going to be a reckoning for what happened today with Carter.  “Your absence has an unsettling effect on Rick.” It’s a half-concealed truth, buried under loose soil and poorly hidden, it’s something Michonne recognises, how quickly Rick’s kinetic energy turns frantic - like a discordant scream – when the space between them grows too wide, how quickly he shut down Aaron's operation.  “You didn’t see him in the prison after you left with Merle either.”

Daryl looks at her suspiciously.   After a time, he says:  “He should come with me next time…” And he knows it too, Michonne realises slowly. Maybe the only person who hasn’t cottoned on to the fact is Rick himself. 

Daryl’s eyes are cat narrow, speculation in his body. Artless, he drops flat on the grass, upper body braced on his elbows.  His torso and legs are a straight river running to the curb:  “You too.”  _Come with:_   _I miss you out there,_ Michonne can read the displacement he’s surely hiding, a fear Daryl’s loathe to admit.  He likes Aaron, clearly, but he’s not certain about Aaron’s skill-set yet and the uncertainty can bred danger, unnecessary risks. He agrees with Aaron’s mission to find people, but Daryl didn’t see the way Rick’s complexion fell - how it drained of all colour when Morgan described the trap set for them.

Together Rick, Michonne, and Daryl were a triptych hinged - they were a work of the most furious, and brutal, art – at angles to one another but standing tall, isolated, they would surely fall. Michonne lets her hand find his thigh, her smile turning thin.  “Yeah, might put things into perspective.”  The house means nothing, the bed means nothing, the job is a distraction, but the people who fill the woods are her entire world. Michonne’s never far from Rick’s presence.  She wears the uniform, duty, works the same shift, and Michonne thought – until she found out about the secrets Rick kept – that she held his confidence, too. She relishes the closeness, a stability from _out there_ she’s allowed to keep _in here._  But she’s missed Daryl and wonders if it’s worse for him.

“Come here,” she coaxes.  

After Woodbury, they did this a few times on the road, in the days when hunting the governor took over the autumn months.  _He’s already given me fleas;_ she told Hershel, wherein flea meant _itch_ and was a euphemism for something else. 

The parts she left out were the point of her sword against his torso, a dire threat to stab him multiple times if he didn’t wash his damn clothes.  The parts she left out came afterward: pale skin, wet hair, and scars across his back like a nebula storm.  Unlike Rick, Michonne _likes_ to be known, to bask in acceptance.  In hindsight, it was worth every damn bite.

What happened was never meant to be hidden; but they were conscious of a holding place in each other - and knew a yearning not realised.  Hushed, they had waited.

But Rick hadn’t looked at anyone else since Lori –

 _Time, he needs to get his head straight_ , Daryl had reasoned, _give him space to let go then we’ll see.  He’s worth it,_ he said firmly.  _Wait.  We don’t ask him yet._

But then the prison fell, their people scattered, and they were left bereft of plans.  Like Lori, there hadn’t been _any_ time to make things right between them.

Or maybe it hadn’t mattered. 

Maybe Rick would have shunned them even if the prison _had_ still stood. Maybe Rick needed someone who hadn’t seen him bawling on the ground after Lori died, curled up small and broken.  Who hadn’t witnessed him on the edge of hallucinations and a mental breakdown, screaming at ghosts no one else could see.  Maybe he wanted to present a slither of himself rather than the entirety, rebuild an image in a stranger’s eyes and live it.  None of it really mattered.  Michonne was done waiting.

The sunlight’s a riot of colour and beckoning warmth, prickling her skin like tiny insect feet.There’s an itch, building to a maddening pitch.  Michonne’s desperate to scratch it.  To give in.  She wants to shake herself all over like a dog. “I have fleas,” she declares, solemnly, because it’s a good enough descriptive as any other, that _itchitch **itch**_ thrumming through her blood.

Startled, he laughs outright.

It’s a rare enough event it catches Rick’s ear. She can see the way his head bobs, how his body angles toward the sound, turning blind.   When Rick catches sight of them on the curb he looks bemused - like someone who walked in at the tail end of a joke but grins politely anyhow – until his gaze drops and sharpens, until damningly, Rick’s expression flickers quick as a stutter reel.  This frame humour.  This frame surprise.  His expression turns bruised, shadows in his eyes like a silent film star, a narrative plain as day.

“Oh.” 

Reflexively, Michonne thumb strokes over Daryl’s thigh, warm against living muscle.  _Oh, Rick’s beautiful_ \- Rick’s charismatic; he drew his people to him and lashed them tight - part of it is his personality and part of it is how easily his expressions roll, like watching someone on celluloid with the ability to imprint meaning without word.  Rick is mesmerising to watch.  Michonne could watch him all day.   And damn she’s itchy. She’s _itchy_ all over. Her limbs twitch and her hips roll and she says breathless, “Can I?”

Daryl’s dirty and mussed up, after twenty-four hours of being on the run with Aaron and Morgan (and every moment afterward), he’s half asleep in the sun.  He’s smiling at Michonne, boneless, and if nothing else he was generous to a fault, even half-starved on the road Daryl would share _everything_ he had ever hunted.  "Yeah," he shrugs.  "Give him a show."

Rick is _theirs_ – their centre piece - in a way that can’t be undone.

She straddles Daryl smoothly, sitting flush to his groin, knees tight to hem him in.  “Oh,” she whispers, because she can feel Rick’s regard, hear the cadence of his boots against the pavement, Michonne knows the tempo of his stride.  “Oh,” she demurs, because she can _feel_ Daryl under her, coarse and stiff - and the manner of way his breath hitches when Rick comes within view, is a long, slow, scratch across all her five senses.  

“You’ll do,” she concedes, and kisses him, eyes wide open.

 

 


End file.
